A new working paper by Yann Duval and Chorthip Utoktham of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) provides a broad assessment of the progress and remaining gaps in trade digitalization. The paper develops and applies the Trade Digitalization Index+ 2025/26 (TDI+), covering 174 economies across four dimensions: Paperless Trade, Legal and Trust Framework, Cross-Border Operational Exchange, and Sustainable Trade Digitalization.
The digitalization paradox
Customs declarations can be submitted electronically, duties paid online and import and export permits issued through a Single Window. Yet what happens when a shipment and the data accompanying it crosses into another jurisdiction?
The TDI+ reveals a striking paradox: trade digitalization is advancing, but the systems supporting it remain far from fully connected. Across 174 economies, the comparable Trade Digitalization Index, based on 18 measures, increased from 55.6% in 2023/24 to 60.6% in 2025/26, with progress recorded in every region.
Introduced for 2025/26, the broader TDI+ expands the index from 18 to 22 measures and reorganizes it into four dimensions: Paperless Trade, Legal and Trust Framework, Cross-Border Operational Exchange, and Sustainable Trade Digitalization. Under this expanded framework, the global implementation score stands at 55.1%, indicating that substantial gaps remain across several areas of digital trade facilitation.
The differences between the four areas are equally revealing. Paperless Trade, which includes established measures such as electronic customs systems and Single Windows, records the highest global implementation score, at 69.6%. Sustainable Trade Digitalization, by contrast, stands at only 31.0%. It covers SME access to Single Windows, electronic submission of customs declarations by postal and express operators, the electronic application, issuance and exchange of CITES permits and certificates, and Single Window services that facilitate traders’ access to finance.
The figures point to a deeper challenge: digitizing individual customs procedures is not the same as creating a connected, inclusive and genuinely cross-border digital trade environment.
Customs has digitalized-but largely within national borders
The strongest results in the TDI+ are found in the systems that customs administrations directly control. Automated Customs Systems are the most widely implemented paperless-trade measure, while electronic customs declarations are also among the most advanced. Many economies have additionally introduced electronic air cargo manifests, online payment of customs duties, electronic import and export permits, digital certificates and Single Windows.
Taken together, these measures raise the global Paperless Trade score to 69.6%. This progress matters: it can reduce manual processing, accelerate the submission of information and give border agencies earlier access to shipment data. The study also emphasizes that automated customs systems and reliable internet connectivity at border crossings provide the foundation for more sophisticated reforms.
However, most of these measures digitalize procedures within a national administration. Progress becomes considerably weaker when information must move between jurisdictions. The global score for Cross-Border Operational Exchange is only 43.6%, 26 percentage points below Paperless Trade. Electronic exchanges of customs declarations, certificates of origin and sanitary and phytosanitary certificates remain at different stages of implementation, ranging from pilots to fully operational systems.
The distinction is important:
- Digitization converts a paper document into an electronic format.
- Digitalization redesigns the underlying process around electronic data and connected systems.
- Interoperability goes further: it enables different authorities and countries to exchange, authenticate, recognize and reuse that data.
A customs declaration may therefore be entirely electronic in the country of export but still require repeated data entry, additional documents or manual validation at destination. The process is digital on each side of the border, yet the trade transaction itself remains fragmented.
The real gap is operational interoperability
One of the most useful innovations in the TDI+ is its separation of cross-border digitalization into two dimensions. The first, Legal and Trust Framework, assesses whether economies have legislation for electronic transactions and digital authentication, frameworks supporting cross-border e-commerce, and arrangements for the recognition of electronic trade documents. Its global implementation score is 54.8%.
The second, Cross-Border Operational Exchange, examines whether data and documents actually move electronically between countries. It covers the exchange of customs declarations, certificates of origin and sanitary and phytosanitary certificates, as well as the paperless collection of payments through letters of credit. This dimension records a substantially lower global score of 43.6%.
The difference exposes the central implementation gap. Governments may enact electronic-transactions legislation, establish digital-signature rules and enter into paperless-trade agreements without achieving routine exchanges between their operational systems. According to the study, approximately 60% to 67% of economies report at least a pilot, partial or full implementation across the four operational-exchange measures. But partial implementation or a pilot corridor is not equivalent to an exchange operating consistently across agencies, trading partners and commodities.
For customs administrations, interoperability must therefore mean more than connecting two platforms. The systems need compatible data structures, reliable authentication, agreed governance and a legal basis for accepting the information received. Authorities must also be able to match an electronic document to the correct declaration, assess its integrity and reuse its data within clearance and risk-management processes.
This leads to a practical test. A country may have a sophisticated Customs system and a functioning Single Window, but can it receive a certificate issued abroad, authenticate it, link it to the corresponding customs declaration and use the data without requiring the trader to submit the same information again?
If the answer is no, the border may be digitally equipped, but it is not yet digitally interoperable.
The legal bridge: recognition across borders
Technology alone cannot make paperless trade work across jurisdictions. Electronic documents must also have legal effect, be reliably authenticated and be recognized by authorities and commercial parties in the countries through which a transaction passes.
To capture this dimension, the TDI+ introduces the Trade Digitalization Agreements and Mutual Recognition (TDAMR) indicator. It assesses whether economies participate in agreements containing paperless-trade provisions, whether those commitments are binding and whether domestic law is aligned with the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR).
MLETR provides a legal framework for electronic transferable records-digital equivalents of documents such as bills of lading and warehouse receipts. These records can play an important role in transactions involving traders, carriers, banks and public authorities, and may also support the documentation presented alongside customs declarations.
The paper identifies a specific legal gap. Fifty-four economies already have the agreements and binding paperless-trade commitments required for the highest TDAMR score, but they cannot reach it because they have not adopted MLETR. As a result, they receive a score of 2.8 rather than 3. Only eight economies meet all the requirements: France, Germany, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Timor-Leste, the United Kingdom and the United States.
For customs, the implication extends beyond replacing one paper document with a digital version. Cross-border digital trade requires confidence that an electronic record is authentic, unique, legally valid and capable of being recognized in another jurisdiction. It also requires governance arrangements defining who issues, accesses, verifies and accepts the data.
Interoperability is therefore not merely a technical connection between systems. It is a framework of law, authentication, governance and institutional trust that enables information to be acted upon across borders.
What Customs Administrations should measure next
The TDI+ tracks whether digital trade measures have been introduced. But implementation is only part of the story. A system may be available without being widely used, and two platforms may be connected without exchanging information that authorities can actually process. The findings point to a broader question for customs administrations: not simply whether a digital system exists, but whether it improves a live cross-border transaction.
That requires more operational indicators and this is key. How many declarations are processed electronically from submission to release? How many transactions are completed without paper, manual data entry or repeated requests to the trader? How long does it take to receive, validate and act on a document issued abroad?
Administrations could also measure how often data received from another agency or country are reused in clearance and risk-management processes. For foreign certificates, the relevant question is not only whether electronic exchange is possible, but how many are authenticated and accepted without requiring an additional paper copy.
The same distinction applies to institutional integration. Counting the agencies connected to a Single Window does not show whether they exchange usable data during actual transactions. Measurement should capture which agencies are operationally integrated, whether they use common data models and international standards, and whether agreed authentication mechanisms are applied in practice.
These indicators would shift the focus from digital availability to digital performance. They would help determine whether technology is removing duplication and accelerating decisions or merely placing fragmented procedures on separate electronic platforms.
The key takeaway: digital does not yet mean connected
Customs digitalization is advancing, but much of that progress remains domestic. Declarations, payments and permits may be online, while the data behind them still cannot move seamlessly across borders. The next challenge is not simply to build more platforms. It is to connect existing systems through common standards, legally recognized electronic documents and trusted arrangements for exchanging and using data.
The real measure of a modern border is not how many digital systems it has. It is whether trusted data can move across agencies and jurisdictions and lead to faster, better-informed decisions.
